Daily Search Forum Recap: March 27, 2008

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Is Search Engine Optimization a Bad Investment?
Julie Joyce writes on the SEO Chicks blog talks about the American Express believes that SEO is a waste of money. The idea is that there are snake oil salesmen (not all SEOs do this, though), but it ends up affecting the industry as a whole. Just because someone promised "guaranteed top 10 rankings in 90 days" doesn't mean he's doing it right or ethically. The industry shouldn't take a hit for that, but unfortunately,

How to Launch a New Website With (and Without) SEO in Mind
Ann Smarty has written a post at Search Engine Journal about how the mindset of webmasters who launch sites with and without SEO in mind. If SEO is a priority, choose a relevant domain name and think over website structure. Of course, that's how you'd approach it if search engines were important. But what if they weren't? If search engines didn't exist (or rather, you'd like the search engines to find you instead), you wouldn't

Google Releases AdWords API Version 12
Google has announced that it has launched the newest version of the AdWords API: version 12. Release notes are here, but include the following new features: Conversion Optimizer support CPC bidding for placement-targeted ads Expanded code sample library Version 11 will be discontinued on July 26, 2008, so if you're an AdWords API developer: upgrade soon rather than later. Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

How Often Does the Yahoo Search Marketing Quality Index Update?
A WebmasterWorld member asks about the frequency of Quality Index updates on Yahoo Search Marketing. The answer is that the Quality Index updates daily provided that your ad has served impressions the day before. How can you maximize your Quality Index? The Yahoo Search Marketing blog gives some insight into this value. Some tips include using relevant keywords, applying the keyword to your creative, taking advantage of excluded keywords, using A/B testing, gathering intelligence, and

How To Join The Google Webmaster Help Group Live Chat on Friday
Monday we reported that Google Webmaster Central Team to Offer Live Chat on Friday, March 28th. As promised, I am updating you with the how to join details of this live chat session. Google's Adam Lasnik posted a bunch of details at Google Groups, throughout a few pages. Here is the FAQ which has the agenda and instructions. Let me summarize: 8:45 (PST) :: You can now join the chat 9:05 (PST) :: The introduction

March '08 Google Sitelinks Update
There are many reports via DigitalPoint Forums that Google has added the Sitelinks feature to many new sites. Tamar even mentioned to me yesterday that a search on tamar weinberg now returns Sitelinks for her site. The last Google Sitelinks update was about a month ago on February 22nd. Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The META Description & Google Search Engine Snippet
One of the oldest questions in the search engine optimization practice is on the META description. The META description is this little tag you include in the header file, that provides a machine readable short summary of your page. Many search engines including Google, Yahoo, & Live Search use the META description in one way or an other. Here is a screen capture of what our META description looks like within the source code of